News
May, 2010
The Vicki Wolf story: An amazing journey
by Betty Kossick
In 2006, Vicki Wolf took her first step on an amazing journey. Vicki’s tale is heartening because she found a tool to help her overcome morbid obesity: LAP-BAND® surgery.
Vicki lived with the morbid obesity label since she was in ninth grade. “The doctor said that I would develop severe health problems if I didn’t curb my appetite and start eating right,” Vicki recalls. She reveals that the physician’s words hurt so much that instead of heeding his advice, “I turned to my plate. It didn’t judge me. Yes, it harmed me but I felt comfortable with it.”
She points out that her weight problems started when as a second-grader, gaining 25 pounds in one year, “It escalated from there, especially after I became an adult, got married and had four children.” 
The turning point came for Vicki when a day planned for fun at Orlando, Florida’s Sea World turned into a sea of tears. She felt humiliated because she could not ride on a roller coaster with her children. At 5’ 2” and 311 pounds, she did not even fit into a handicapped seat. That downer experience launched her into in-depth S.O.S. research to find the help she needed to escape from her life-threatening disease. She realized one thing that did fit her--the term “food addict.” She also knew that she must do something about it.
“Food is an addiction just like cigarettes or drugs or alcohol,” she urges. Vicki, who is a Christian, says, “It grabbed hold of every aspect of my life. I knew that I could not give my best to my family or be the Lord’s servant if I didn’t take care of myself.”
In her search, Vicki found a mother lode of information when she dug into the gold vein called LAP-BAND® surgery: a silicone gastric band that restricts the amount of food the stomach can hold by placing an inflatable band around the upper part of the stomach. It made sense to her, “Because it is a minimally invasive kind of surgery, without the risks those other kinds of weight-loss surgeries I had researched about.
A comforting aspect about her discovery is that the physician she consulted with at Florida Obesity Surgical Associates, P.A.in Zephyrhills, Florida, Dr. Lee Grossbard, had undergone the laparoscopic adjustable gastric banding surgery himself. She learned that the surgery itself was not a guarantee of weight loss but a tool to help her acquire it. Vicki went through all the psychological and physical protocols to assure her of being a candidate for LAP-BAND surgery. She qualified. Dr. Grossbard performed the surgery for Vicki, and a dream came true.
At the time of this interview in April 2010, Vicki, 39, is into three-and-a-half years of weight loss, currently at 209 pounds with her eventual weight goal at 150 pounds. Is she totally happy with the new Vicki? “Yes, and then some!” she exclaims. To explain her effervescent enthusiasm, she points out 10 special things that the new Vicki could not do before 2006:
• She can go into a clothing store’s changing room and not have to try on 20 outfits to find nothing that fits, “I used to cry because of the sadness I felt. Now if I cry in a changing room it’s because of the gladness I feel.”
• “I can bend down and tie my shoes like a normal human being!”
• Vicki says, “It’s wonderful to get on a bus and not have to turn sideways and pull in my stomach so I won’t bump someone.”
• “The very best day after I lost this weight is when I got on a roller coaster with my children and did not have to ride in the “fat” seat. I was crying again but not because I was ashamed or scared. I was happy.”
• Getting her rings resized. “I teach second grade at Faith Baptist School in Fort Pierce, Florida. One day when I was leading the children in a song, waving my hands, a ring flew off my finger. It was my high school class ring. I’d not worn it in 20 years. I hadn’t been able to wear it, even on my pinky finger. I was wearing it on my regular ring finger.”
• “I can wash my own back now!”
• The day her eight-year old son, who used to be embarrassed by his fat mom came up to her and hugged her saying, “I can wrap my arms around you, Mommy.”
• Vicki is thrilled that she can walk up two flights of stairs without huffing and puffing and doesn’t worry about her ankles giving out because of the weight bearing on the way back down stairs.”
• “Not sweating all the time!”
• These days Vicki is thrilled to have a clear complexion, and be able to try new hairdos that look good on her. She is growing her hair to a fashionable length.
• Then, she adds #11, “I wanted to ride a motorcycle. I did. I rode a Harley.”
“The whole journey has been a strengthening and encouraging feat for my entire family.
The Lord and my family have been my support group. I had to get my mind and body together, I do a lot of walking, I have some aerobic tapes that I exercise with, but most of my exercise comes from playing with my kids. When they go out to play, I go out to play. My life is full. I work full time teaching. I also attend college part-time to learn nursing.
The new Vicki recounts that previously with the old Vicki’s body and mind she used to eat massive amounts of food, “For instance, two man-sized helpings of spaghetti. Now I can eat a handful and I can be very happy. Each time I sat down to eat, I used to feel defeated when I finished a meal. Now, mealtime is a complete victory. Every day was some kind of battle, even trying to pick out clothes to wear.”
These days the idea that she can be a role model to influence others is foremost in her mind. She says that she is not trying to look like a model but to be a lifestyle model. Regardless, she does confess to liking how she looks these days, including enjoying some glamour, “I love live theatre. At Christmas, an aunt and uncle bought me one of the most beautiful nights of my life: tickets to see The Phantom of the Opera and a beautiful black gown to wear. I felt beautiful wearing that size 16 gown because I used to wear a size 26. That gown hangs in the center of my closet. It speaks to me, ‘You did it.’ Now I know that if I want to get down to a size 12, I can.
“I’m so thankful that I chose the LAP-BAND® as my weight loss tool. It wasn’t a shock to my body or my mind. LAP-BAND is like an internal support team for me.” She also acknowledges that she will also eventually have plastic surgery to rid herself of the excess skin she acquired with the weight loss but with that added surgery, she will also lose more weight and help her to reach her goal. “It’s not plastic surgery for vanity’s sake but to feel more comfortable,” she notes.
She confesses to the fact that it is heartening to her to encounter someone she has not seen since the weight loss. Some do not recognize her. “They’ll say things like, ‘Half of you is gone!’” She says that she replies to them, “Yes, the bad half.” In fact, she adds, “Just today that happened.”
Another plus that she finds very reassuring to her is that the deciding factor of choosing LAP-BAND® because Dr. Grossbard underwent the same procedure, is that she has also observed him on his own journey, “Seeing him be successful helped me be successful.”
The LAP-BAND® did not just change my physical body; it changed every aspect of my life for the better. Truthfully, the LAP-BAND® allowed me to take on a new job, new activities, new clothes, new friends, and it strengthened me and left me without fear. Laughing she tells, “Some of my friends call me ‘fearless.’”
Vicki’s enthusiasm seems to reach a crescendo, when she announces, “I’m so thankful that I took a chance of LAP-BAND® because it changed my life, especially for my children Dalton 6; C. J. 8; Heather, 11; and Emily, 15. They got their mommy back. It has been and still is an amazing journey.”
• Betty Kossick is a freelance journalist, living in Canton, GA, who first interviewed Vicki less than 24-hours after her LAP-BAND® surgery. She lived in Zephyrhills Hills, FL, when she first chronicled Vicki’s story. After following Vicki’s updated journey, she considers Vicki a true role model.
July, 2005
“That brought the fear of gaining weight back,” DesVignes says. “You don’t want to go back down that path.” A father of five, he feared that he would not be there to see his children graduate. So, after long discussions with his wife Terri, who had the LAP-BAND® procedure last November, he decided to have surgery once again.
pictured left to right: Mr. Ian DesVignes, patient,
Dr. Lee Grossbard, M.D., Dr. Richard DiCicco, M.D.,
and Dr. Pandurangan Krishnaraj, M.D.
DesVignes did not seek to become a landmark patient. He just sought help. In doing so, he became the first patient in the state of Florida to have “LAP-BAND over open gastric bypass” surgery.
Lead surgeon Dr. Lee Grossbard, assisted by two of his colleagues from Florida Obesity Surgical Associates, P.A., Drs. Pandurangan Krishnaraj and Richard DiCicco, performed the procedure at Pasco Regional Medical Center in Dade City on July 1. The surgery is rare; there have been fewer than 30 of these procedures in United States and fewer than 100 worldwide.
The first surgery had left DesVignes with a small pouch, separated from the rest of his stomach, which could hold only about 1/2 cup of food. The size of the pouch limited the amount he could eat at any one time. Over the years, his pouch had tripled in size. He had also learned how to eat foods that could “go down” more easily. After regaining 50 pounds, DesVignes opted for a LAP-BAND® over his bypass.
The surgeons operated laparoscopically, that is with long tools through small incisions no larger than 1-1/4 inches. To DesVignes, whose open gastric bypass had left him with a scar running from his breastbone to his navel, 1-1/4 inches incisions sounded good. The difficulty of the operation lay in getting through the scar tissue created by the prior surgery. “Once that was down, it was a pretty simple operation,” says Dr. Grossbard.
In LAP-BAND surgery, a hollow silicone band is placed around the upper stomach, creating a small pouch. A kink-resistant tube connects the band with an access port positioned just under the skin. The doctors can govern the amount of food that the patient can eat comfortably by adding or removing salt water and, thus, controlling the size of the opening between the pouch and the remainder of the stomach. For DesVignes, the laparoscopic procedure took just under 2-1/2 hours, five times as long as it takes the surgeons to install a LAP-BAND without the complications of scar tissue and distorted anatomy from prior surgery.
DesVignes had the procedure on Friday, went home the next day and back to work the following Tuesday. He contrasts this with his previous surgery, which had required five days’ hospitalization and six weeks off work. He will have mandatory follow-up visits monthly for the first year and periodically in succeeding years. He also participates in a number of support groups.
Support groups were not a common feature of weight-loss surgery when DesVignes had his bypass six years ago. He considers them key to his success this time around. “When you’re in that community and you have that support from other people, and you socialize with them, even outside the sessions, it’s good because everybody understands,” he says.
“Even doing something simple like going to a restaurant – you go to a restaurant with your normal friends who haven’t had surgery and everybody’s looking for you to eat, because they remember the old you. And you get looks from the waiters like something’s wrong or the food is bad. So they continually come and ask you, ‘Is something wrong? Is there a problem?’ You’re like, ‘No, I’m just trying to lose weight. I’m sorry for being fat, okay?’ But they don’t understand.”
Dr. Grossbard is a member of the same support groups – not as a doctor, but as a patient. One of the first surgeons trained to do the LAP-BAND procedure in the United States, he chose the surgery for himself in October 2002 and has since lost 100 pounds. He cites three major advantages of the LAP-BAND -- “It is reversible; it is the safest and easiest to do laparoscopically, and it is adjustable.”
To be eligible for weight-loss surgery in the United States, patients must be morbidly obese, with a Body Mass Index (BMI) of 40 or more – generally 100 pounds or more overweight. Severely obese patients, those with a BMI of 35 or more – generally 65 to 75 pounds overweight – are eligible if they also have another condition impairing their health, such as diabetes, hypertension, heart disease, arthritis, or gastro esophageal reflux disease (GERD). All patients must have a psychological evaluation.
The surgeons at Pasco Regional Medical Center have performed more than 600 LAP-BAND surgeries, more than have been performed at any other hospital in Florida. And they have operated on patients with BMIs as high as 82.
The surgeons see great hope for patients who are no longer benefiting from their weight-loss procedures. “We already have two patients with prior gastric procedures getting ready to have LAP-BANDS put over what they have,” says Dr. Grossbard, who believes that the trend in weight-loss surgery is toward the LAP-BAND.
Terri DesVignes agrees. She has lost 62 pounds insisted that Dr. Grossbard perform her husband’s surgery. “I went to Orlando with the kids,” she says. “I walked 15 miles. I actually went on roller coasters with them. I would have never done that before. After a couple of hours, we would have had to go back to the motel. It’s much easier on the kids now.”
The children were a major factor in Ian’s decision. “You want to be able to get out there and really coach them and teach them and really show them things – not just sports, but anything. You want to have that energy level.” DesVignes says he feels good after surgery. Losing more weight has alleviated his back pain.
“And you stopped snoring,” adds his wife.
Ian DesVignes, 34, had a gastric bypass six years ago at UCLA Medical Center. After surgery, he had lost 200 pounds. But then, he hit a plateau. Eighteen months ago, he began gaining the weight back. He was able to eat more and he did. His weight began yo-yoing again, as it had before surgery.
